Hard automation can be defined as the use of delicate pieces of machinery, typically to produce the same item over long periods of time. This is expensive to build and inherently inflexible to product changes. However, its design can be optimized to produce the maximum amount of product at a minimum cost, so it is more attractive than the use of robots for the large-scale production of a few different items. However, much of industry is concerned with batch production where perhaps one type of item is made during the morning and another during the afternoon. Human beings are very good in this environment. From a robotic point of view they are light, mobile structures with exceptionally good sensory perception and intelligence far above that of any current robot. This gives them superb adaptability. However, they tire, may become unreliable, unpredictable, and may well wish to be pursuing other activities which give greater scope for the use of their intelligence, or indeed just give greater pleasure. A robot will neither be optimized for a particular application nor have the adaptability of the human. However, it can combine the reliability and predictability(at least until robots are made “intelligent”)of hard automation systems with a little of the adaptability of the human. Robots therefore have a place somewhere between these two extremes. For robots to play a positive part in supporting human activity, not only must they adequately perform a given task but the human aspects of any implementation must be thoroughly considered.回答第（51）空
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